“Are you laughing at me?” I inquired. “I am not laughing, I am smiling at you,” she replied lovingly. “When am I going to see you again?” she went on, as though declining to admit that what had just happened between us, since it is generally the crowning consummation, might not be at least the prelude to a great friendship, a friendship already existing which we should have to discover, to confess, and which alone could account for the surrender we had made of ourselves.